Chorazin - Synagogue

The most important building in Chorazin was - and is - the synagogue, built in the second or third century, also of black basalt. Like the synagogues of Capernaum and Bet Alfa, it has three aisles. The entrance was at the south end. Parts of the walls of the rectangular hall, the floor and the bases of ten of the original fourteen columns between the aisles still remain. The synagogue was richly decorated with architectural sculpture, like the one at Capernaum, but in less refined forms because of the harder material. The carving includes foliage, fruit, animals and human faces. A particularly interesting find on the site of the synagogue was a finely carved stone seat with an Aramaic dedicatory inscription (now in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem). Seats of this kind were installed in old synagogues as places of honor for the head of the community.